A Bibliophile’s Report

Books have always been my companions, mis amigos, my teachers.

So it is not surprising, living as I do part-time in Walton, that I have become a disciple of the Hobart Book Village, a cooperative that began life eleven years ago and is now a destination for local and not-so-local bibliophiles.

The Book Village is also a font of literary and writerly activity, like the Festival of Women Writers, which for three years has made Hobart a go-to place the weekend after Labor Day (save Sept. 9-11, 2016 on your calendar).

This spring, a new bookstore will join the cooperative, bringing the total to six. And two new restaurants, including a British-style pub, are slated to make their debuts on Main Street. Continue reading…

Successful Pilot Plans to Expand

Robo-Boys Isaiah Smith and Robert Menyhardt

Using very similar technology to that used by scientists in NASA’s Mars Rover program, some of Franklin’s youth have recently found out just how cool robotics technology can be through a six-week robotics program pilot. Describing the recently concluded after-school program, leader and mechatronics professional, Steve Cox exudes enthusiasm, emphasizing the impact robotics and other science and technology programs can have on our students.

With funding from the Franklin Community Education Foundation (FCEF), and in collaboration with Franklin Central School, the Franklin Robotics Club formed in October 2015. Six Lego EV3 Robotics Kits, each costing $400, were distributed to six two-person teams made up of students in grades 5-10. Weekly challenges were dispensed, encouraging club members to work together and problem-solve autonomously. Continue reading…

“The camel’s nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions.” (Wikipedia) In the fable, a camel seeks shelter from a raging storm in the tent of its owner. Initially he permits the camel to stick only its nose inside, but bit by bit it comes to occupy the whole tent, with the owner pushed out into the weather.

Back in 2012, a partnership led by Williams Partners L.P. of Tulsa planned to profit from ramming the Constitution pipeline down the length of Franklin. Only two years later, a Houston company, Kinder Morgan, wanted to cash-in similarly with the Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline, only fifty feet from the first. This one would come with a compressor station. Revisions of the second company’s plan added a chemical facility to a much expanded complex. Even more was proposed with the addition of a huge power generating plant, possibly next to the Marcy South high-voltage line. Continue reading…

The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) is planning sweeping changes to the ways New Yorkers will receive their electricity. Huge central generating plants will be phased out, and much of the electricity supplies of the future will be locally generated by smaller facilities scattered across the countryside; these local generators are known as Distributed Generation (DG) resources. The spreading out of generation across the State will reduce the risks and inefficiencies of central generation and grid distribution; the grid will still exist, shuttling energy where it is needed, but DG will improve the grid’s efficiency by geographically matching electric supplies with electric demands.

The current grid will be subdivided into a patchwork of microgrids. All of the customers on a microgrid will share and rely upon the DG resources within their microgrid; when they need more power than they can generate locally, they will be able to buy power from the main grid. If the DG resources on a microgrid produce more power than can be used locally, the microgrid will be able to sell its surplus into the main grid. If the main grid fails, the DG resources on each microgrid must be capable of supplying enough power to keep the microgrid functioning (though possibly at a reduced level of power.) Continue reading…

The text version of the minutes in this post was created with optical character recognition (OCR) software. While every attempt has been made to verify the text, accuracy is not guaranteed. Please refer to the PDF version of the minutes in the link below to see an exact version as received from the Town of Franklin. A video recording of this meeting is below.

The text version of the minutes in this post was created with optical character recognition (OCR) software. While every attempt has been made to verify the text, accuracy is not guaranteed. Please refer to the PDF version of the minutes in the link below to see an exact version as received from the Town of Franklin. A video recording of this meeting is below.

TOWN OF FRANKLIN
P.O. BOX 63, 554 MAIN STREET
FRANKLIN, NEW YORK 13775
607-829-3440

January 20, 2016

To Whom It May Concern:

Please print this notice in the next published paper.

NOTICE

At the January 6th 2016 meeting, the Franklin Town Board set the meeting dates for the 2016 year. All meetings will begin at 7:30 p.m. The meetings held in March, June, September and December will be held in Treadwell at the Treadwell Fire Station. All other meetings are held at the Town Garage in Franklin on the corner of County Route 21 and NYS Route 357.

The text version of the minutes in this post was created with optical character recognition (OCR) software. While every attempt has been made to verify the text, accuracy is not guaranteed. Please refer to the PDF version of the minutes in the link below to see an exact version as received from the Town of Franklin. A video recording of this meeting is below.